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Climate

Climate change is already shaping what the future will look like and plunging the world into crisis. Cities are adapting to more frequent and intense extreme weather events, like superstorms and heatwaves. People are already battling more destructive wildfires, salvaging flooded homes, or migrating to escape sea level rise. Policies and economies are also changing as world leaders and businesses try to cut down global greenhouse gas emissions. How energy is produced is shifting, too — from fossil fuels to carbon-free renewable alternatives like solar and wind power. New technologies, from next-generation nuclear energy to devices that capture carbon from the atmosphere, are in development as potential solutions. The Verge is following it all as the world reckons with the climate crisis.

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The first major offshore wind farm in the US just started powering homes in New York.

This is BIG in more ways than one. With blades longer than the Statue of Liberty is tall, these are 12 massive next-generation turbines towering over the Atlantic. Together they should be able to generate 130 megawatts of clean energy for some 70,000 homes. For comparison, the US only had the capacity to generate 42 megawatts from offshore wind until now. More big offshore projects are on the way (and just a reminder, there’s no evidence to show they’re harming whales).


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Is anyone surprised Shell is walking back its commitments to pollute less?

We are talking about the the same industry profiting by creating the climate crisis. Shell previously promised to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which is impossible unless the company pivots away from dirty energy. Shell’s blaming consumers for its own lack of follow through, saying “investment in oil and gas will be needed” to meet demand.


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Fossil fuel companies are using AI to drill faster.

They’ve used AI for years to find new oil and gas reserves. Now, more advanced AI is helping them drill oil wells more efficiently. Within a few years, a significant chunk of wells could be drilled autonomously, Bloomberg reports. That brings costs down and helps dirty energy compete with renewables like solar and wind, which have become cheaper alternatives to fossil fuel power plants that wreck air quality and cause climate change.


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AI, Bitcoin mining, and clean tech manufacturing could push US power grids to the brink.

Electricity shortages could become a big problem over the next several years unless the US races to get more sources of clean energy online, The Washington Post reports. Data centers for AI and crypto mining are huge energy vampires. And the resurgence of domestic manufacturing for everything from semiconductors to EV batteries and solar panels are also expected to put extra strain on aging power grids.


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Don’t believe all the hype about AI helping fight climate change, a new report warns.

Because of all the energy it consumes, AI might actually make things worse by driving up greenhouse gas emissions. There’s also the risk of AI being weaponized to spread climate disinformation. You don’t have to take my word for it; this report from the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition brings together current research on the issue.


The price of Bitcoin hit a new peak, rising above $69,000 today.

That’s the highest it’s been since 2021, before the long, cold crypto winter brought that price crashing down to less than $20,000.

A friendly reminder: the higher that price gets, the more energy Bitcoin mining typically burns through and the greater its greenhouse gas emissions.


A graph shows fluctuating Bitcoin prices, peaking around $69,000.
A screenshot of Bitcoin prices tracked by CoinDesk.
Image: CoinDesk
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No sir, your greenhouse gas is not allowed here.

A dude in California became the first person to be charged with smuggling greenhouse gases. He was actually lugging refrigerants into the US from Mexico: Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), to be exact. HFCs are “super” greenhouse gases up to thousands of times more potent than CO2. The US and other countries have pledged to phase down the use of HFCs under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.


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The Verge
The methane-tracking satellite Jeff Bezos essentially paid for just launched.

But it’s not on one of his rockets. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is carrying MethaneSat, a satellite made to measure the potent greenhouse gas methane. The Bezos Earth Fund gave the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) $100 million to build and launch the satellite. Google is also partnering with EDF to create a global map of methane pollution coming from oil and gas infrastructure.


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Lawsuits blame an electric utility in Texas for the state’s largest wildfire.

The devastating Smokehouse Creek fire has already burned more than a million acres, killing at least two people, and destroying hundreds of structures. Officials are still investigating the cause of blaze. But at least one homeowner and one rancher have filed suits against utility Xcel Energy. A pole owned by Excel subsidiary Southwestern Public Service Company reportedly fell within the area where the blaze might have started.


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The US Department of Energy has to start over if it wants to survey Bitcoin miners’ electricity use.

The DOE reached a settlement with crypto miners who sued to block data collection. The agency tried to make companies disclose their energy use through an emergency data request. But a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order on it in February, saying the situation probably didn’t warrant emergency authorization. On Friday, the DOE agreed to destroy information it’s already collected. It can start over without emergency authorization, but would have to propose a new survey and give the public 60 days to comment.


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The EPA is delaying final rules on power plant pollution.

Measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions from gas-fired power plants operating in the US probably won’t be finalized until November — after presidential elections. It’s a risky gamble for environmental groups pushing the Biden administration to take more time to tighten proposed regulations. If Donald Trump is elected, policies to tackle climate change could just go out the window like they did during his last stint in office.


AI is making data centers more power hungry.

AI eats up a lot of electricity, and that’s driving up data centers’ energy use. It’s also changing the physical footprint of data centers and making it harder for companies to hit their sustainability goals, the New York Times reports. With the AI-fueled boom in new data centers, sites under construction in North America could eventually use as much power each year as the San Francisco metro area, according to a real estate report published yesterday.


A nuclear weapons facility is back online after a fierce fire forced non-essential workers to evacuate.

The blaze is still tearing through the Texas Panhandle after scorching 500,000 acres. The Smokehouse Creek Fire is now the second largest in state history, with 0 percent contained as of Wednesday morning. The facility responsible for disassembling a majority of the nation’s nuclear weapons shuttered briefly Tuesday night as flames drew near.


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The Verge
Elizabeth Warren is still pushing crypto mines to divulge their electricity use.

Warren has been urging federal agencies to scrutinize energy-hungry Bitcoin mines. But crypto groups secured a temporary pause on the Department of Energy’s survey of their electricity consumption.

“The Department is asking cryptominers to report basic information about their energy usage—like other industries have done for decades—so the public and lawmakers better understand how cryptomining’s electricity use and carbon emissions affect the power grid and environment,” Warren said in a statement to The Verge after the news came out.


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Clean energy projects are coming to tribal and rural communities in the US.

The Department of Energy announced $366 million for 17 clean energy projects across 30 Tribal Nations and 20 states. All of them are connected to “disadvantaged communities that are disproportionally overburdened by pollution and historically underserved.” That includes off-grid solar and battery storage for the Hopi and Navajo Nations, aiming to give 300 rural homes electricity for the first time. More than one-fifth of Navajo homes and one third of Hopi homes lacks electricity, according to the DOE.


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It’s not looking good for the EPA’s ‘Good Neighbor Plan.’

The largely conservative Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday for Ohio v. EPA, and it sounds like SCOTUS is sympathetic to plaintiffs fighting the agency’s Good Neighbor Plan. The plan would force states, including Ohio, to prevent smog-forming pollution from drifting downwind to other states. More than a dozen states are fighting the plan in lower courts, and Ohio wants SCOTUS to force the EPA to pause the plan entirely while those legal battles are ongoing. Whether SCOTUS sides with Ohio now likely points to how it would rule later if any of those cases in lower courts ultimately make their way to SCOTUS.


Is the US on track to meet its climate goals?

Not yet, but there have been some gains since Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and Inflation Reduction Act into law — two huge investments in clean energy and transportation. EV sales and clean energy additions to the power grid hit record highs last year, according to an analysis by researchers from Princeton, MIT, and Rhodium Group. But progress is expected to slow down unless the US can get rid of red tape that’s getting in the way.


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Do states need to be better neighbors to each other? SCOTUS will decide.

The Supreme Court of the US will hear arguments today over an Environmental Protection Agency plan that would force states to curb smog-forming pollution before it can drift over to their neighbors. Ohio and other plaintiffs want SCOTUS to stay the EPA’s ‘Good Neighbor Plan’ while their case challenging the agency’s legal authority to impose the plan works through lower courts. You can listen in on oral arguments in Ohio v. EPA at 10 AM EST.


Switching to electric vehicles would be fantastic for kids’ health

Fewer asthma attacks, less bronchitis, and healthier lives for millions of kids.

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Taylor Swift’s flight tracker has responded to the singer’s legal threats.

Jack Sweeney, a college student who uses public flight data to track jets belonging to celebrities like Swift and Elon Musk, has refuted the singer’s claims that his flight tracking accounts on social media cause her “direct and irreparable harm.”

In a letter to Swift’s legal team, Sweeney’s lawyer says “there is nothing unlawful” about the “use of publicly accessible information to track private jets,” adding that the threats “suggest a groundless effort to intimidate and censor” Sweeney.


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High winds over the Atlantic meant at least three planes went faster than the speed of sound.

None of the planes actually broke the sound barrier—there was no sonic boom. Instead winds up to 250 mph gave the planes one helluva tailwind and allowed them to travel in excess of 800 mph.

All three flights arrived safely, and early, at their destination, but those same high winds didn’t just move planes. They’re also to blame for D.C. getting less snow than originally forecasted over the weekend.


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Green roofs save energy.

Rooftop gardens are really cool — literally, they help keep indoor temperatures down because evaporation from plants has a cooling effect. Asphalt rooftops in comparison, absorb and trap heat. New research in Seoul now shows that green roofs actually reduced the energy intensity of buildings by close to 8 percent. That boost in energy efficiency means green roofs are helping to keep the planet cool, too.


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The new Twisters trailer is a storm chaser’s dream.

Warner Bros. first Twister movie was very much a public service announcement about how dangerous running towards tornadoes can be. But that message seems to have been lost on everyone in the first trailer for director Lee Isaac Chung’s upcoming sequel Twisters due out July 19th.